


Cheap Tea & Science Labs

by Feather Qwill (Feather_Qwill)



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-25
Updated: 2008-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feather_Qwill/pseuds/Feather%20Qwill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papa D and Vesca; how they met and how they were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheap Tea & Science Labs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheloya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/gifts).



> (Originally posted late 2008, as a birthday gift for Cheloya. Slightly revised April 2014.)

The professor, who does not like foreigners, will not give D a key to the laboratory. 

This is a problem, but it is one that is easily enough remedied. There are many young and hormonal students with access, and the D have always been attractive to humans.

Father would be displeased to know his methods, to know that he is trading off on the genetic fluke that doomed their ancestor. He does not care. His way is efficient and it is _easy._

It is easy to manufacture an accidental first meeting. It is easy to call upon a young man’s sympathy for an unfair situation. It is easy to get himself invited over for beer and pizza. It is even easy to take the young man to bed.

It turns out that it is not so easy to get the young man to actually _hand over the key_ so that he can make a duplicate. 

D grits his teeth as the young man natters on about _responsibility_ and _trust_ and how “Dee” can certainly “come with” to the lab any time he wants. 

But no, he can’t have his own key. 

———

D smiles and says thank you and then sticks the box of Tetley’s Earl Grey as far to the back of the cupboard as he can. 

Tea. In _bags._

The young man, Vesca-Howell-call-me-Vesca, has become a permanent fixture in his life. _Not,_ he stresses, from choice. 

He tries very hard to be nice to Vesca, the way that Father is nice to customers, because it is important that Vesca likes him and doesn’t take off and leave D without access to his special projects. He doesn’t always succeed, because Vesca is extremely irritating and seems to find it amusing when D’s rude to him.

“Don’t you want to have some now?” Vesca says.

D stares at him, blank. 

“The tea,” Vesca prods, “It’s cold today.”

“Oh,” D says, “Yes, of course.”

He looks longingly at the small tin of imported golden monkey and puts the water on to boil.

———

They’re sitting in D’s apartment, drinking more of the awful stuff that Tetley persists in calling tea, and Vesca has just informed him that they will be having dinner with his family.

“Why?”

“You’re my best friend, Dee,” Vesca says, “Of course they want to meet you.”

“If I’m your best friend, then you should let me copy your key.” D says, sour.

Vesca looks right at him.

“If I did that, I’d never see you again.”

D shifts uncomfortably on the couch. It is, of course, true; but he’d hardly intended Vesca to know that.

“So!” Vesca says, “I’ll pick you up at four.”

———

There’s nothing more to do, nothing more that he _can_ do. His experiments yielded valuable data, but ultimately failed. 

D doesn’t take anything with him except for his fish; he even leaves the plants behind. He moves to Arizona, which is hot and empty and dry. The house he rents is small and also empty.

It’s foolish, but when he goes to the grocery store to fill his pantry, he picks up a cheap horrible box of Tetley’s Earl Grey. 

He doesn’t think about it too much.

**Author's Note:**

> end.


End file.
